Team Friendship's Adventures of The Lorax (2012)
Team Friendship's Adventures of The Lorax (2012) is a special Thomas & Friends/MLP:FIM/EG/Dr. Seuss crossover film. It is an alternate version of . Plot Ted Wiggins is a 12-year-old boy who lived in Thneedville, a walled city that, aside from the human citizens and their pets, is completely artificial; everything is made of plastic, metal, or synthetics, with no living plants ("Thneedville"). Ted has a crush on local environmentalist Audrey, who wants to see a "real tree" more than anything in the world, so he decides to find one in order to impress her. His energetic Grammy Norma secretly tells Ted the legend of the Once-ler, who will tell anyone about what happened to the trees if they bring him fifteen cents, a nail, and a shell of a great-great-great grandfather snail. When Ted and leave Thneedville in search of the Once-ler, they discovered that the outside world is a contaminated, empty, barren wasteland, which brings back terrible memories to . Once Ted finds him, the Once-ler agrees to tell Ted about the trees on the condition that he listens to the story over multiple visits. Ted agrees, but on his next trip, he encounters the greedy mayor of Thneedville, Aloysius O'Hare, who is also the proprietor of a company that sells bottled oxygen ("fresh air") to Thneedville residents. O'Hare explains to Ted that trees produce oxygen free of charge, and therefore he considers them and/or people talking about them to be a threat to his business. After revealing that he has "security-camera eyes" all over the city, O'Hare pressures Ted to stay in town. However, Ted continues to sneak out of O'Hare's sight with his grandmother's encouragement and learns more of the trees' history. Over Ted's various visits and with Thomas, Twilight and Sunset's help, the Once-ler recounts the story that when he was a young man, he departed his family to find good material for his Thneed invention, a piece of cloth that has multiple uses, and make a business. The Once-ler meets the guardian of the forest, the Lorax, after cutting down a Truffula tree in a lush Truffula tree forest valley where Team Friendship are having a peaceful camping trip ("This is The Place"). The Lorax urges the Once-ler to leave the forest, but the Once-ler refuses. Eventually, the Once-ler promises not to chop another tree down, and the two begin a friendship of sorts. The Once-ler's Thneed invention becomes a major success ("Everybody Needs a Thneed") and the Once-ler's family arrives to participate in the business. At first keeping his promise, the Once-ler continues Thneed production by harvesting the Truffula tree tufts in a slow but sustainable manner. However, his greedy and lazy relatives convince him to resume chopping down the trees, causing him to end his friendship with both the Lorax and the animals. Over time, the Once-ler's deforestation spirals into a mass overproduction. Flushed with wealth, the Once-ler rationalizes his short-sighted needs into arrogant self-righteousness, and our heroes and the Lorax's helpless protests do not stop him ("How Bad Can I Be?"). The Once-ler pollutes the sky, river, and landscape, until the very last Truffula tree falls. With no further chance of business, he is left broke and his family promptly disowns and abandons him. With the region uninhabitable because of the pollution and deforestation from the Once-ler's business, our heroes sadly departed back to home and the Lorax sends the animals off, hoping that they will find a new place to live before the Once-ler sees him depart into the sky, and disappear, leaving only one word on a small pile of rocks: "Unless". Distraught, ruined, and filled with regret, the Once-ler becomes a recluse. After he, Thomas, Twilight and Sunset finish telling the story, the Once-ler finally understands the meaning behind the Lorax's last message, and gives Ted the last Truffula seed in hopes that he can use it to regrow the forest and make others care about real trees once more. Ted's desire to impress Audrey has now become a personal mission to remind his town of the importance of nature. O'Hare, still determined not to have trees undercut his business, takes heavy-handed steps such as covering Audrey's nature paintings, closing off the door that Ted uses to see the Once-ler, and forcibly searching Ted's room for the seed, which has begun to grow after coming into contact with some water. Ted enlists his family and Audrey to help plant the seed. O'Hare and his two henchmen pursue the dissidents until they manage to elude him and reach the town center. When Ted finally attempts to plant the seed, he is interrupted by O'Hare, who rallies the population to stop them by telling the people that trees are dangerous and filthy. To convince them otherwise, Ted takes an earthmover and rams down a section of the city wall to reveal the environmental destruction outside, showing them what happened to the trees and what O'Hare is encouraging. Horrified at the sight and inspired by Ted's conviction, the crowd turns against O'Hare, with his own henchmen expelling him from the town with his jet pack-like helmet, and the seed is finally planted ("Let It Grow"). Time passes and the land starts to recover; new trees sprout, the animals begin to return, and the redeemed, now-elderly Once-ler happily reunites with the Lorax, and Thomas, Twilight and Sunset decided to introduce their old and dear friend the Lorax to the rest of their team of friends. Before the film fades out, a quote from Dr. Seuss is shown: "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not." Trivia * are guest starring in this film. * In this film, while the Once-ler, Thomas, Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer are telling the story about how they first meet the Lorax, only appear in the story, all because it is a flashback story before the debut of the rest of the team. So the story takes place between and . Category:Thomas & Friends/MLP:FIM/EG/Dr. Seuss crossovers‏‎